Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What do we expect from JJ McCarthy in OTAs?

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about the Vikings starting OTAs and what's next for their rookie quarterback. Plus a bunch of other storylines including Justin Jefferson's contract, the receiver battle and Viking fan questions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and we're about one hour away from tip-off of Game 7 Wolves and Nuggets. So I figured what better way to kill the time than just talking about some football with a bunch of nervous Minnesota sports fans. So here live again, very excited to talk with you all and this week we have another ota practice so it's been a little while we had rookie mini camp we had our first impression of jj mccarthy but now we will get to see sam darnold jj mccarthy we will see about the attendance of a certain star wide receiver at otas and then we'll have another practice next week, then a three-day mini camp where we get to see the most intense practices that they will have throughout the summer. So I made a list of all the things we're going to be looking at for OTAs. And of course,

that begins with JJ McCarthy, but I'm also interested in your guys' questions. I've got a list here of things I'm going to be looking at, but also want to answer whatever is on your minds as you wait for Timberwolves basketball and what a night it could be. I guess we'll see. Edwin, to your question, is that me playing guitar on the intro? It is, yes.

That is me playing guitar. I wrote that song a little while back, and then when I started Purple Insider, I didn't want to steal anyone else's music and then have copyright problems. So I just put that in there. I've been playing guitar since I was about 13 years old. So yep, I got garage band like every other guitar player and jam out from time to time and make stuff like that. So yeah, that is cool. So let me start out with the list for OTAs and we'll just, you know, both weeks kind of put both in the same bucket of OTAs because we'll get to

see a grand total of two practices, which means maybe 15 to 30 throws from the quarterbacks and a handful of reps, but you know, another look at what's going on. And as always, just to throw it out there to make sure everybody knows the conclusions that will be drawn from OTAs are lukewarm at best. There's not going to be hot take conclusions coming from me for OTAs, but you guys know that, that we're going to take our time with this, but we will have reaction from TCO Performance Center after the practice. We'll see who's doing the pod with me. Maybe Dane Mizutani or Andrew Kramer or Will Raggetts. We'll see.

But I'll be doing the usual from there. But of course, the first thing that we're going to be looking at, and thank you, Daniel, says lukewarm is acceptable. I appreciate that because it's just not time yet to get hot. But it is always interesting to see the first time that the Minnesota Vikings actually walk out onto a practice field of the year. It's not training camp. It's not full speed.

It's not super aggressive or physical, and they are all learning the offense and defense together. There has been a couple of funny little things that have happened along the way in OTAs and minicamp. One of them was in minicamp 2018, Mike Zimmer deciding to throw the kitchen sink at John DeFilippo, who's now coaching in the UFL, by the way. But he decided to throw the entire defense at Kirk Cousins and John DeFilippo. I don't know what kind of point he was trying to make, but the offense had such a miserable day

that Kirk Cousins threw the football into the road at TCO Performance Center, which is a long way away. He really launched it. He was so upset with how things were going and then afterward called it a pity party and said, you know, we got to get back to it. But that sort of was the first sign. And trust me, normally OTAs and minicamp are very relaxed.

It doesn't seem too intense. But that was the first time that we got this sense. Something doesn't really seem right between these two. The other funny one, I think it was that same mini camp where they lined up Brian O'Neill and some practice reps. I don't think it was actually live ones, but maybe just drills at like tight end and threw him some touchdowns. And I made a milkshake bet with Chip Scoggins of the Star Tribune that would, would it be over under 0.5 touchdowns for Brian O'Neill.

And for some reason, Chip took the over. So he still owes me a milkshake for that one. But that's just the point that you can't really trust everything you see at minicamp and in OTAs, including I remember Kevin O'Connell's first year as head coach in 2022 during this same time where Delvin Cook was lining up in the slot. So of course, all of us, we did our podcast. We wrote our articles.

Delvin Cook lining up in the slot. Oh, this is going to be interesting. Is he going to use Delvin Cook as some sort of hybrid Percy Harvin, Debo Samuel? And they never did it. They never did it. A couple of times they lined him up in the slot and motioned him back into the backfield, but it never happened. So that's just sort of some evidence there that everything you see can't, it can't always be taken super seriously. I remember there was a wide receiver who didn't make the team. His last name was Davis and he had

this incredible mini camp. He caught caught everything and we went into uh training camp calling him mr mancato this guy's gonna be mr mancato this receiver is great i don't believe he ever played a game for the vikings he may have made the practice squad and then got cut after that if somebody remembers his first name let me know decide something davis even tristan jackson last year had a great OTAs and mini camp and you know, he, he played a little. So I guess there was that. So let's just talk about the, the reps though, for JJ McCarthy, because at the very top of the list, something we actually can draw a conclusion from is just how often he plays with the first team and they will be rotating wide receivers, but you usually look

for the first team center, the first team offensive line who's playing left guard will be notable as well. I expect it to be Blake Brandel, but does he get a lot of snaps with Garrett Bradbury or is it, I assume Dan Feeney is going to be their backup center. I guess we'll find out about that as well. Is it all second team reps where Sam Darnold is getting the vast majority with the first team and then he's mixing in a little? Davion Davis. That's correct, Daniel. Good job, Davion Davis. So is he going to be mixing in a little?

Is he not going to be mixing in at all? Is he going to be going back and forth as if we're in quarterback competition mode? And what you're looking for is over the next three weeks to find out by the time mini camp ends at the very end of mini camp, that third day, I assume they're not going to cancel the third day with new quarterbacks that they're going to need to actually get their work in. Sometimes with a more veteran team, you cancel that third day. Everybody celebrates, they fly to Cabo and they're happy going into this six week true off season that begins at the beginning of June. But by the end of mini camp, does it look like it's going back and forth between Darnold and McCarthy or is it entirely Sam Darnold taking all the first team reps still?

And that would not, of course, be a sign of JJ McCarthy in trouble, struggling, et cetera, but it would be evidence that they view Sam Darnold through the off-season program, through the OTAs and minicamp as ahead of JJ McCarthy and as QB1 entering training camp. And that's the way I like to look at this is just where does each player stand heading into training camp? And then there's just always these markers along the way. So there's, let's find out where everyone finishes mini camp. That's where they'll begin training camp. And then we get to when pads come on, of course.

And now, and this is sort of a new thing because Mike Zimmer didn't have a lot of those joint practices only a couple of times. And they were intense, but they, you know, I think Zimmer cared more about preseason games, but O'Connell doesn't care about preseason games. So then, you know, those joint practices, they become very important. We'll see if JJ McCarthy is playing in preseason games. That's way down the road. But my point is just that there's these kind of markers along the way. So you get the first couple OTA practices. Then by the end of the mini camp, where does everybody stand and what should we expect? I honestly have no idea what to expect

for how the reps are going to be divvied up. The way that they have been talking about J.J. McCarthy, his approach to this entire thing, makes me think that he can learn a lot of the things offensively pretty quickly, based on his history, based on where he came from. This isn't learning to take a snap from a center. This isn't learning to, I mean, he's going to have to get the call in his headset, but have a play call, get to the line of scrimmage, run a play action. Like those are things that he would have done quite a bit in college, including some of the concepts that the Vikings use. So how far has he been able to come from rookie minicamp? Because the way I understand this is when you get to rookie mini camp, that's when you

get the playbook, you start understanding the install of the basis, the basics things that you're going to do as an offense. And then when OTAs come around, then they really start installing the offense. And that's why it's important for players to be there when it's voluntary is that they're really laying the foundation of what they have in these OTAs. So how is he catching on to that? They'll have little walkthroughs, they'll have meetings, they'll get a sense for that as a coaching staff, and then they'll take it out to the field and they'll have a practice and they will know, of course, better than us watching, is he looking to the right places? Is he throwing to the right places?

Is he lining people up correctly? And I think if McCarthy does those things that he will either get first team reps or just get a lot of reps in general. But maybe if he's really mastered those things, then he will get first team reps by the end of mini camp. And we will be talking about him actually battling against Sam Darnold in a quarterback competition if he doesn't all that means is just they're taking it slow and they want to make sure he's absolutely comfortable with those things going into training camp and that he's of course going to have to earn the job that they think that Sam Darnold is a pretty talented quarterback who could be good here.

And they also don't want to rush someone along. The other part of it too, is when you have a lot of really good players on the team, you want to make sure the best quarterback is playing. So if Sam Darnold is far ahead of McCarthy, which I do expect, by the way, I mean, Darnold has learned multiple offenses, played for San Francisco last year. He's a veteran player that has done this dance a number of times with a number of different offenses. He should be better at figuring out how to pick up an NFL offense much more than a rookie who's doing it for the very first time. But if McCarthy is not getting those reps at the end of minicamp with the first team, first team receivers,

first team offensive line. That's okay. It just means that they don't want him to be pushed too far ahead and that he's got a lot to learn when they go into training camp. And that's what we expected from someone who hasn't played a ton of football so far in their career. And what JP asks here, should we worry if JJ can't change his touch on the football? Seems like he's always throwing fastballs. I hope I'm wrong about it though. So that was my next thing that I wrote down here about just interested in OTAs and how JJ McCarthy looks is exactly what you're asking about the fastballs, about the touch on the football, and just his comfort in general. Because a lot of these things have to do with the timing of it, right?

You drop back, you either hitch or you plant your foot or whatever it is footwork-wise on any given concept, and then you're supposed to throw it a certain way. So if it is an out route to the sideline or something, maybe that's where you do want to really let it rip and fire it. Right. Or if it's more of a, a dig behind a linebacker, then maybe you want to put a little touch on the football, guide it over that linebackers arms and into the wide receivers hands or something like that. Each one of these has a different type of throw. I think, I don't know if the Vikings have this, but a lot of teams have it sort of a one, two,

three type of system. Think of it as pulling a different club out of your bag where you don't want to chip with your five iron. You want to chip with your pitching wedge and the same sort of thing where you need a rocket, you need a touch ball, and the same sort of thing where you need a rocket you need a touch ball and you need a moon ball where you're throwing it deep and dropping it in over somebody else i'm sure there's more types of throws than that that they teach but each concept is going to have different types of throws like that that he's going to have to master and they all go along with starts with the feet and then it's, you know, anticipation, how well you can anticipate when someone's breaking open. Like there's a lot to it,

but your question, should you worry? My answer is I'm not sure yet. And we probably won't really know for a while. Now I think about other quarterbacks who do this, who are other quarterbacks who really just throw bullets all the time or that did at the beginning of their careers. And the guys that come to mind are Josh Allen, for sure. And Matthew Stafford are the first two quarterbacks that I think of when I think of they came into the league and they were just whipping the football as hard as they possibly could. And they were top whipping the football as hard as they possibly could.

And they were top draft picks drafted. Well, Stafford is all the way at the top of the draft, but Josh Allen, same sort of ballpark. And both of them still do that to some extent where they just whip the ball. But Stafford over the years did become much better at throwing it with touch. And I think that josh allen did too uh allen maybe less so you still see everything he throws where he's just firing it um but i think it's a lot easier to dial somebody back than it is to try to create arm strength from whatever body and frame that they have so you already have the arm strength thing, and that's a major bonus. But as far as the rest of it, I do think that that's something that can be developed over the years. When we're talking about somebody who is as young as JJ McCarthy, it may never look like

Drew Brees though. It just, there's a lot of different types of quarterbacks that win in a lot of different ways. And one of the ways is to just fire it super hard into very tight windows, which JJ McCarthy might try to do a lot. And as you see from Josh Allen and Matthew Stafford, that does result in interceptions at times. It also sometimes results in Matthew Stafford throwing a no look pass that helps him win the Superbowl. I don't think that the arm talent of McCarthy at this point is the same as those two quarterbacks, but as far as his top speed and the velocity he's able to put on the ball, I mean, it's up there. It's, it's very good, especially on those intermediate routes.

Can you adjust it as we go forward? That I don't know. We're going to have to find out. But I think that that's plausible. It's not something I would look at and say, oh my gosh, he throws the ball so hard, he's just going to fail. I would not look at it that way. I would look at it as that's going to take some time to develop and watching that progress as we go along is something that, you know, I'll be reporting on through OTAs, through training camp, and then we'll see if when he ends up starting. William says, no doubt McCarthy will be starting at some point. The question is when, and I won't know that from otas but we might start getting our first hints from otas as and minicamp as in all right does this look like those two on a daily basis are in camp are going to be

qb1 qb1a qb and back and forth in the first team reps and mccarthy is going to have a chance to simply outplay sam darnold and win that job day one. And Hey man, you're traveled to New York and it's your show. And here we go. Or is it going to be your QB two for training camp? You're going to watch Sam Darnold. You're going to learn how to play NFL football, and then we'll see how the season goes. And somebody asked a great question the other day about if you're the backup, can you still learn in the same way as if you start? And I think the answer is absolutely yes, because after every practice, you're going to see J.J. McCarthy staying out there for a very long time on the practice field, working

with Josh McCown, working with Grant Udinski, the assistant quarterback coach. So you're going to see a lot of that every day, just trying to make more and more progress with the details he's working on. And I think you can definitely do that. And as a backup too, you're playing the role of the other team's quarterback in practice. So you're learning things that the other team does offensively. You're practicing against players. For sure, you can make a lot of progress when you are QB2. So if he is and he's not getting first team reps in minicamp, that's OK. That's all right.

But I am curious to see about just the leadership element and the command of the offense element where I do believe that you can get a sense of that right away. And some, the way that somebody goes to the line of scrimmage, the way they get people lined up, I think you all intuitively have a feeling for this, especially when you don't see it when it's Jaron Hall and it looks like the timing isn't quite right. And he doesn't really know where the ball is supposed to go. Or even just the best example I could give is that Justin Fields never got this. Justin Fields never looked like a guy who had commanded the offense.

And people would always blame their offensive coordinators. And I'm not saying that the offensive coordinator was good, but I think that's just a great example of someone that anybody could watch play quarterback and you go, why is the timing off on every single throw from Justin Fields? Well, that's what I'm looking for. The opposite of course, with JJ McCarthy is the ball coming out. Is it coming out confidently? Does it look like the coaches are enthusiastic or frustrated or all these little things that you can look for in a couple of practices to figure out how far along is he in commanding an offense? He should come out and look better than Darnold, look better than Kirk Cousins or something. That is all going to develop over the coming weeks and into the coming season and so forth. But if he looks like he's in command right away, that might be a sign of where this could go in training camp. uh, just a Superbowl bike says, uh, outside of Darnold McCarthy, do you think the Vikings keep

hall, uh, and trade or get a draft pick for Mullins? And I don't think you're trading Nick Mullins. You'd probably be cutting him. Uh, nobody's giving you draft picks for Mullins. Uh, I feel like that would make sense. You're not going to get anything for hall. No, I don't think that they should actually get rid of either one of them. I think they should keep four quarterbacks, and it should be Darnold QB1 to start, then McCarthy as the backup, Nick Mullins QB3, and then Jaron Hall on the practice squad. Mullins really knows this offense, and he's the only one in that room who really knows this offense and who has started a lot of games and where I completely understand that no one wants to

see Nick Mullins play football again. But if you watch the games that he played against the lions, the ball went to the generally right player a lot. It just, there was a lot of mistakes and not a lot of very good throws and some crazy stuff that he did, but he understands how to play that position. He started a lot of games in the NFL, and I think he's as good of a teammate as you're going to see. That's somebody that you would like to have in the room with the other two guys. And it's not like he can't play if you have to, but that's not that important for this

year. It's more important to have a veteran quarterback who is really highly intelligent about the game and can be a positive contributor in there and in practice and so forth, be somebody to lean on for the younger quarterbacks. And as far as Jaron Hall goes, there's just no real, they can cut them out of camp. Probably no one picks him up. There's no downside to having a practice squad quarterback. Last year they played four QBs. So, you know, maybe just in case. But I don't see any reason to move on from him. And I would be very surprised if someone was going to trade for him,

unless you were talking about a swaps of sevenths or something from a team that was really desperate for a backup quarterback. Just the Super Bowl, Vike says, I don't see how Sam Darnold can fail with this offense, and I don't think he will. I think the only way we see McCarthy is if Darnold is hurt and they put him in the last game of the season. Well, so with Darnold's history, he throws an interception for every touchdown. And that's not great. So I can see how he fails. The way that he fails is the same way that Nick Mullins failed, which is by throwing

interceptions and fumbling and just turning the ball over and struggling. But the other thing might be if Sam Darnold plays okay, but the team starts to slip out of playoff contention and JJ McCarthy is ready, then there might not be any reason to keep Sam Darnold as the starter if you're already falling behind and you end up in a position where you're two and six or something like that. And you've really struggled. Even if Darnold is playing competent football, you're at a point where, all right, everyone's going to be okay with putting in McCarthy. It's better to get him the on-field experience. So there's lots of different scenarios. I mean, the range of outcomes for Sam Darnold is anywhere from the guy leads them to the playoffs and plays extremely well to he's benched by week four and we've got jj mccarthy in there i or i mean heck he could lose the job out of training camp i should even go that far so there's all sorts of different outcomes it's hard to see him being spectacular

because of his past that he's never been that in the past there were times with carolina and i know that's a big difference but times with carolina where he's pretty good and in the past. There were times with Carolina, and I know that's a big difference, but times with Carolina where he's pretty good. And they had DJ Moore there and they had fired Matt Rule when Sam Darnold played well. And he played okay for San Francisco last year. I mean, this guy knows how to play in the NFL. It's just that you should probably temper the expectations a bit based on his past. So I could definitely see Sam Darnold not winning the job out of camp or, you know, the first couple of weeks he plays okay, or doesn't play well.

And then JJ McCarthy is in, or I could see him playing the whole season and we don't see JJ McCarthy until 2025, or he goes to the NFC championship. And then what do they do? We can never count that outcome out with the Minnesota Vikings, right? Sean says, given they have Darnold, I hope they keep Hall over Mullins. We know what Mullins is. Well, Hall is still raw and we don't know what he might develop into. Well, the thing about Hall being raw is that he is the same age as Sam Darnold. So he really is probably what he's going to be once he comes into training camp this year. There isn't a magical ceiling with

Jaron Hall. He's pretty physically limited. I think in the best case scenario, Jaron Hall is their backup quarterback for 2025. He is a bright kid. He's a mature kid. I think that he has the capability to be a long-term NFL backup, but there isn't an upside to him of being a starter at some point. If he becomes Nick Mullins, then that's a big win for them as a draft pick, considering how old he was, the shortcomings when it came to his size, his physical gifts. If he's a quality backup for a couple of years and you only have to pay that backup 800 K, then that's a good draft pick for you. But it's not like someday they're going to find the next Brock Purdy or Tom Brady here. I don't think that would be pretty shocking based on what we saw in training camp in those games

last year. I would prefer to just keep him and Mullins and keep somebody that is going to be mature in the NFL, played many games, many different offenses, including this one now for this will be his third year. So he knows everything there is to know about the offense. I would prefer to have him. Andy says, what do you predict their record is this year? So the other night I did the, and you can go back and watch that, the game by game on the schedule. And I ended up coming up with nine and eight, but I will say this. I had to reach a

little to get to nine and eight. I think I had them winning and I think I made a mistake. I, because the Packers games are so far spread out, when I was doing the picks, I thought that I gave them a loss at Lambeau and I gave them a win. So I had them beating the Packers twice to go nine and eight. That schedule is very hard though. It's not easy.

I think when you have really good coaching and Brian Flores qualifies for this, Kevin O'Connell I think has proven himself as a good coach. We can't yet say great coach because that requires winning in the playoffs to be considered a great coach, but can get the locker room behind him. The passing game works with Kevin O'Connell.

We know those things. I think that that alone can get you to seven or eight. Think about how much went wrong for the Vikings last year, and they still ended up with seven. They had a hard schedule to start the season. They had the fumbles. Then they had the injury to Kirk cousins and they got seven. Can they get one to two more? Sure. I think that they can. The defense might end up being in the top 12 of the league, top 10 of the league. If they stay healthy, even with a difficult schedule, that to me gives them an opportunity to be in that playoff race. That's where I've got them right now, but we don't even know who's starting week one at quarterback. So that does make it a lot more difficult. As far as the other things to look

for, let me run through a couple of things real quick that I'll be looking for in OTAs here. Of course, Justin Jefferson. Is Justin Jefferson in attendance? Unless we hear of a contract extension by Monday, I would not expect for OTAs for Jefferson to be there. Those are indeed voluntary, which I'm sure you'll hear from Kevin O'Connell when he talks or anybody else has asked about Justin Jefferson's status is that they are voluntary, so he's not getting fined. However, when we get to minicamp, that's when it gets serious because you can be fined if you miss all three days of minicamp somewhere in the ballpark of $100,000. According to the collective bargaining agreement,

that's when they could start putting pressure on Justin Jefferson to show up or to sign an extension. But I also wouldn't be shocked if they get the extension done the week of minicamp. That's a great time. Get him in. It's okay if he misses OTAs and won't set him too far back. He already knows the offense, but minicamp where they can take a lot of real reps, oftentimes at pretty high speeds, that would be a great time to have Justin Jefferson

here. You do not want this drama to go into training camp when you're trying to develop a young quarterback, trying to install the offense for Sam Darnold, and you've got expectations on this team to at least be competitive. You sign players in the off season. You've got some veteran stars here. You really don't want that every day. What's Diana Rossini or Albert Breer or Adam Schefter or whoever saying about Justin Jefferson's contract? Should they trade him? So let's have a debate show. Like, you don't want that.

You would much rather have him extended, all set and good to go, gets in there for many camps, sets the stage with some chemistry with the quarterbacks to go into training camp in good standing. But we will see. I wouldn't be shocked if it goes either way. Negotiations are very hard to predict. A couple other things.

The wide receiver battle. Past Brandon Powell on the depth chart kind of shrugs here. There will be opportunities for guys. If Jefferson is not here to step up. Jalen Naylor, what do we see from him? Then you got a bunch of guys. Nikhil Harry still plays for this team. Tristan Jackson has another year under his belt. So there's a good number of guys that will have

opportunities to step in if Jefferson isn't there. But even if he is, there is a battle that's going to take place in training camp. So can anybody get a little bit of an edge? You got the two guys from Mercer. Malik Knowles was with them last year. They brought him back because they think he's got some explosiveness. So that's interesting. Dallas Turner, where does he fit in? Do we get any idea of how Andrew Van Ginkle and Dallas Turner could be on the field at the same time? We know it's a week to week thing with Brian Flores. Some weeks he's going to play some guysores some weeks he's going to play some guys some weeks he's going to use certain schemes but is it just going to be on the edge is it going to be moving inside is it going to be him you know Van Ginkle at inside linebacker and maybe one of

the linebackers off the field or three linebackers on the field and one defensive tackle like what's this going to look like uh We won't completely know that, but maybe just some hints. Even last year where we started to see Ivan Pace Jr. get second team reps and went, oh, that's interesting. Sometimes something in OTAs that's small and minicamp will stand out to you and then it ends up coming to fruition in training camp. I know that this is much bigger than the quarterback situation for most of you. The kicking competition, is it real? How many kicks do we actually get to see? I'm definitely looking for that. Will Reichert, I'm intrigued. Who cares how we felt about the draft pick?

Was it right to pick him? Was it not right? I don't know. Hard to say, but he is the most decorated kicker that you're going to find in college. How does he look right away? John Parker Romo is on the team at the moment. Is he going to be on the team in training camp or will it be the Will Reichard show? Maybe we'll get like six field goals or something to go off of. We'll see on that uh and the other thing is uh just the the signs of life from the 2022 draft class is there anybody from the 2022 draft class who can show us anything to think that they're actually competing for jobs andrew ruth jr or lewis scene or brian awesome wa or uh and where does ty chandler fit in is ty ch Chandler splitting first team reps with Aaron Jones,

or does it look like Aaron Jones is going to have the whole offense to himself? So lots of things to look for in OTAs beyond just, of course, the quarterback play. But the quarterback play will be at the very top of the list for sure. Anthony says, Vikings will have two separate training camps for the qb room one for developing jj to meet benchmarks and the other one to resurrect sam's career well yeah i mean that's the thing is that it's not the easiest uh way to approach training camp as developing a young quarterback because you have all these players

who have expectations for their own seasons. You have assuming Jefferson is there. Addison wants to have a huge second year. O'Neal is getting on the older side. Derisaw wants to make a pro bowl, right? And Aaron Jones didn't come here just to develop a quarterback. The quarterback development really has to take place around training camp. It has to take place after practices with JJ McCarthy. It has to take place in minutes between reps coming over to the quarterback coach just for a second. It has to take place in the meeting room when they're pointing stuff out, but you're also making sure that Sam Darnold fully understands this offense. So yes, it is really important, but you also can't put so much effort into always talking with the rookie quarterback every second. It's a little bit

sink or swim because of this. You can't just put all your efforts into him. Otherwise everyone else is going to look around and go, Hey, we're supposed to win this year. This isn't just put all your efforts into him. Otherwise, everyone else is going to look around and go, Hey, we're supposed to win this year. This isn't, you know, rookie camp. This is a training camp for all of the top players. It's a little bit more dicey than just saying, Hey, Kirk cousins roll out there and you're good to go. You run the offense here. I'm going to send in the play calls and you're all set. It's going to be a lot different and a unique challenge for Kevin O'Connell based on what he's been dealing with in the past. I mean, he was with Matthew Stafford before, comes here with Kirk Cousins. I don't know when the last time, must've been Dwayne

Haskins in Washington, I think would have been the last time that Kevin O'Connell had a young quarterback that he was working with like this. Go get him says, if we do get a high draft pick based on a bad record, what position should we draft? I'm going to tell you the truth, man. I am thrilled not to talk about the draft for a long time. The draft was really fun and I enjoyed all the shows that we did and conversations we had. I am out of draft mode completely and will not enter draft mode again until I don't know when. Whenever I have to.

March, I'm going to say March, out of draft mode. If I were to answer your question right now, I would say defensive tackle. But, I mean, we are so far away from that. Who are the defensive tackles? Who are the corners? I have no idea. But I can definitely live without reading another mock draft for a very, very long time. And trust me, when we get there, I won't leave you short.

I will not leave you short when we get there. But it does matter, just to your question, that the Vikings kept there. But it does matter just to your question that the Vikings kept their pick. That does matter because when you look at this schedule, you can come up with eight or nine wins, but you can also say if something goes wrong for this team, you could come up with five wins instead. You could come up with a top 10 draft pick. And had they given that away to get JJ McCarthy, and then you're giving whoever, if they had traded up with the Cardinals or something, giving the Cardinals your top pick, and then you're without, that would have been pretty tough. That definitely would have been pretty tough.

Matt says, can you talk about the first, second, third team? And does that mean jj or anyone else will get more or less reps at otas uh i'm not sure exactly how you mean um but the first so what happens a lot of times is the offensive line groups will have a first second third team the wide receivers rotate in a lot more maybe it's based on who's supposed to get X number of reps. The wide receivers have mileage things where how many routes you ran, how far. They try to keep it at a certain number just to call it load management, if you will, but maybe just call it like smart player tracking.

So sometimes they'll dial back receivers or they just want the quarterback to have chemistry with different receivers. So that might end up being part of it too but as far as getting more or less reps usually the first team of course is going to get the most reps but first and second bounce back quite a bit and the third team will mix in every once in a while so you'll see them go out all right it's a group of reps for the first team. Here they go. Four plays, five plays in a row, six plays in a row, one, two, three, four, five, six. All right. We did those. And then now, all right, here comes the second team. They switch out. And, and a lot

of times actually with this group that I don't think Mike Zimmer used to do this. They will have second team versus first team or vice versa with the defense. So it might be second team offense versus first team defense. I don't know the philosophy behind this, but that does happen. With this regime, it really didn't with Zimmer. It was always ones, ones, twos, twos. Rarely did they mix and match, but Kevin O'Connell does that. Maybe Brian Flores likes to get a look at how certain twos look against ones, or I'm not really sure. However, the reps are, I don't know, it doesn't

say equal between first and second team. It's clearly more that's going to go to the first team, but in a situation like this at OTAs, the second team would get a lot of reps. And now this is probably different too, because like Kirk Cousins was the quarterback. So the first team was getting almost all the reps with Cousins at quarterback. And he would even take some, I think he would take some with the twos at times. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's right that he would take reps with the twos. So he could have the backup center, the other receivers i'm trying to think back but that makes sense to me that he would take most of the reps out there and then the third team is kind of barely mixing in uh from time to time but that's just you know how it usually goes i think they might get a little more work when it's otas for

the third team but it's mostly going to be first team, first team, and then second team occasionally, which is okay to limit the number of full team reps until JJ McCarthy is ready to go. That's that's all right. Like he can still progress doing that. And also watching is good. Like him standing behind Sam Darnold and watching Darnold get the call in, run the play, seeing how he does it. Like that's,

that's all progress. Mental reps, folks, mental reps. We always underrate those mental reps. Rich says, modify what JJ did in college or something similar until he progresses. I don't believe that Kevin O'Connell wants to do that. I get the sense that Kevin O'Connell wants to run his offense the way he believes it works and the quarterback will run that offense. We saw that last year from Josh Dobbs, probably a mistake trying to do that with Josh Dobbs. I mean, the guy got here midway through the season. You can't really ask him to run the whole offense, but he wasn't going to have rhythm and timing. He doesn't have rhythm and timing if he plays all the time because he's Josh Dobbs. That was maybe a little unfair to him, but with JJ McCarthy, you drafted him to fit your offense. He should be able to learn the whole thing. I don't think this is rocket science.

Am I right? It was just really, really hard for Dobbs. So there will be some adjustments, but if you tried to run Michigan's offense in the NFL, it's just going to lose. Like it's, you can't do that. It's, it's not going to, it would look like 1995 NFL, which is kind of what Michigan's offense looked like. You're not going to be able to do that. And I also don't think that Kevin O'Connell can lean on or will lean on the running game. It can lean on the running game more than last year, of course, because you have a better running back. And even Ty Chandler was a better running back than, you know, than Alexander Madison was.

We just know that Kevin O'Connell wants to throw the football. So when JJ McCarthy is ready to throw the football 35 to 40 times, stand in there, run all those plays, make all those reads, get all those footworks and everything else, then, then it's time. But until then, then it's not time. Gary says, JJ will win the job. He's all about winning. Yeah. The thing about that is it doesn't really matter what you've done before. And I think that there's a reason that JJ McCarthy has had the success that he had in high school. He was a better player than anybody else, probably in his state. He was Mr. Florida. I think he also won in Chicago in high school and then goes to Michigan, plays very well on a great team and wins a lot of games. That means nothing in the NFL,

absolutely nothing. The, it is so much more difficult. The teams are so much better. The coaches scheme so much better. They have so much more people on their staffs, data, all these things. It's the best players in the world. It truly does not matter if you won all those games in college. It's about being able to compete at this level, which takes an absurd level of detail. And if you don't get it down, you're just not going to be able to start and you're not going to be able to win. My guess is that JJ McCarthy's first five or six starts, he'll have as many losses as he did in all of high school and college. Cause that's the NFL. I mean, how many games did Tua lose in college? How many games did Mac Jones lose in college?

Like there's a lot of quarterbacks who were winners and then they went to the NFL and it was just a lot harder. So he's going to have to be completely, completely ready to go before he can come in and win in the NFL. He does have as good of a situation as anybody has had coming into the league in years. I would say that for sure that he can come in and win right away, but whether he wins the job, it's going to depend on if he outplays Sam Darnold, if he knows the offense better, if he can run the operation, make the right throws, throw with touch on the football. All those things are going to determine it. What he did in college, it's all in the past. Doesn't matter at all now. Just a Super Bowl, Vike says Murphy's a great undrafted pick for the Vikings.

Defense is going to be stellar. Bring back the purple people leaders. Well, they're definitely not that. They're definitely not that yet. That's where they would need the defensive tackle for sure. And as far as Murphy, that's another one of we'll see. Because last year they get Ivan Pace and they paid him highly and he had great numbers and everything else. But there have been lots of other UDFAs who have come in that haven't shined. I really like that move to sign Gabriel Murphy to give him, I didn't see how much money he made, but he's a player to watch for us. We

won't get any real sense out of OTAs unless he's playing with the second team. If somebody who's a UDFA is playing with the second team and getting a lot of action there, then you've got my attention and I'll be intrigued going into training camp. If they're on the third team, we don't know. We'll have to wait till camp. But I mean, I agree with you that I like that signing. It's just, I always temper expectations when it comes to UDFAs. Every once in a while, you get your Ivan Pace, who totally shocks us and blows us away. But oftentimes that does not end up being the thing.

A guy that was a UDFA last year that I will be looking for though this year is Andre Carter, because last year he clearly was not in NFL shape and that's not his fault. He was in army. So I don't know that they focus the same way as maybe Alabama of getting their players in NFL shape. So if he comes back looking like an NFL player, then again, you've got my attention because he has the talent to do it and he has the wingspan and the speed. It's just, you know, you got to take a big step forward there when you're going from that program to the NFL. Sean says the key

is how both quarterbacks are hitting the books the last month. JJ has a history of overstudy, so no issues there. I'm sure that Darnold sees this as a prime resurrection in a prime spot. Oh, most certainly. I mean, I would have no concerns whatsoever about Darnold learning it because he was with Kyle Shanahan last year. And if he could play the way that he did in the time that he got in and impress Kyle Shanahan, I'm sure the Vikings talked to the 49ers before signing him, then absolutely he should be able to learn it. With McCarthy, hitting the books and doing it is a different thing. And there can be a lot of stumbling blocks along the way, because even just learning to get a play call in your headset, give it to the huddle, get to the line of scrimmage, and then remember all those details. The play calls are long

and they have a lot of different things to them. So you have to remember all of those things. And then you have to go out and do it on time and all that. It just, it takes a while. It's not necessarily, Hey, he studies the playbook. He'll be good to go uh it's gonna have to be more than just that it's gonna have to be a lot of reps in practice doing those things to have it down when you're supposed to throw the ball where against what defenses how do i do those things it's a complicated game uh so he's gonna have a lot to do but if he doesn't win the job what I'm saying is don't look at it as, well, I guess he just didn't study or something. I assume that based on his history, he will be prepared as far as knowing the offense and understanding the playbook, but transferring it over,

that's a little bit of where I think the biggest stumbling block is for young quarterbacks is just bringing all of that information that you are cramming into your noggin in these first couple months after a very stressful draft season where you're preparing your body for the combine and then you're doing these meetings with all these teams and you're flying around and you got all sorts of things going on and then now you got to do this it It's a lot of stress. So if you fight your way through that and then you win a starting job, it's very impressive.

And if he were to win a starting job at this age and with this little experience throwing the football, it would be a really, really good sign. I think it's, I don't look at it the other way where it's a disaster if he's not taking first team reps. But if he is by the end of this mini camp i think we're gonna go all right well that's that's some pretty darn good progress right there jp says i noticed that o'connell threw balls to the receivers and drills last year

we'll be curious if mccown does that too or if o'connell loves doing it i think o'connell loves doing it they probably both will but i think o'Connell loves doing it. They probably both will, but I think O'Connell likes throwing to his wide receivers. Uh, he's not, you could, you could definitely see where, um, Kevin O'Connell didn't make the league by the way that he throws the football, but I think they'll both do it. Sean says, uh, good for McCarthy to see how JJ, Justin Jefferson, uh, runs a route, watch the route beyond his moves, his tempo, waiting till the zone shifts, reaches the second defender to hit the open space beyond. Yeah. I mean, all those, all those things, chemistry is a big deal with receivers and

quarterback and Jefferson had it with Kirk Cousins in a lot of ways. And that's why when you would hear him talk about Kirk Cousins, he would always give a lot of praise to him because they did build a good relationship over the years that took time. It's just not something that happens right away. It does take training camp, like you said, to understand the pace of a wide receiver is important, how they move their velocity i mean you're talking about trying to take a pigskin and putting it in a certain spot with a receiver leading them 15 20 yards away from you that you need to understand how fast that guy is moving right in order to

make that calculation in your brain although with jefferson he will catch everything and anything around him it's just that's something that you would like to see Jefferson in minicamp in training camp to just get the clock started on those two selling McCarthyism says are you okay with going 3 and 14 this year and trading down in next year's draft again next year's draft I'm just not in that space anymore so I have no idea what they're going to do in next year's draft, I'm just not in that space anymore. So I have no idea what they're going to do in next year's draft. Am I okay with them going three and 14? No, I'm not okay with them being three and 14. If they go three and 14, it's a pretty big disaster. It means a lot of things went wrong. And if they are going to, and you guys all know how I advocate for tanking.

Hey, by the way, Anthony Edwards is about to play in game seven. Where did they get him? But I'm okay with tanking. I'm not okay with this team tanking right now. This is not a team that you want to see fall off the rails and go three and 14 and have it just be an epic disaster where they're getting crushed or something. What you'd much prefer to see is that this team, either with Sam Darnold, is competitive to the final week, or that if

they struggle early, McCarthy comes in, plays something like 500 football the rest of the way, and you finish with six or seven wins because at least at that spot, you would feel like, all right, you're not that far away. You can sign a couple of players. You could get a fairly high draft pick and then take that next step that we're looking for in 2025. If you go three and 14, then we're talking about a team that is miles and miles away. And that's not supposed to be where they were at. They were not supposed to be a million miles away. They were supposed to be a competitive rebuild type team that is supposed to remain competitive.

Because if you go three and 14, yeah, okay, you'll get a top draft pick. That's great. But you're also going to be talking about a coach who's on the hot seat in Kevin O'Connell that he's going to go into the next season with a ton of pressure. I do not see the Wilfs who want to win every single year sitting back and saying,

you know, it's all good. You know, it's all good. Three and 14. No, no big problem. No big deal. Shane says JJ threw a lot in high school, especially at IMG. Acknowledged the competition change in the NFL. Just curious if he could demonstrate his playmaking he showed then.

Well, he showed playmaking at Michigan. He just didn't have as many dropbacks at Michigan. But if we were going through the things that I watched and liked about his game, the playmaking was a big part of it that he was always trying to throw on the run, scramble when he got pressured. And I think that your last sentence, I think his ceiling is more than a manager, a game manager. I mean, it certainly could be. We always think that we know what someone is going to be, what the range of outcomes are. And then as soon as they get on

the field, it looks completely different. A lot of times in the NFL. He does have the talent to be more than just a game manager. I would agree with that as far as playmaking, running ability, scrambling, throwing on the run, arm strength, all those boxes checked. The ceiling is probably higher than just being Mr. Checkdown or something. He didn't play like that. He was not a big, oh, I'm just going to check down every third down or something. He was pushing the ball down the field when he had opportunities. I think it's just because he did game manage for Michigan that that's why people made all the game manager comparisons. And I talked about Matt Hasselbeck, can you be like that? Because he was a decent athlete, kind of a playmaker with a pretty strong arm, but he

wasn't a monster. Could it be higher than that? We're going to start to find out the more that we see him. But the high school stuff doesn't mean a whole lot. I mean, Kellen Mond was at IMG too. It's so far in the past, so far away that what really matters is just what happens next. OTAs, minicamp, how does he set himself up? But to your point, though, it's just that, yes, the ceiling could be higher than that

with his actual talent. Sean says, JJ McCarthy needs to learn those easier lofts to open spaces before Jefferson can hit those rather than a hundred mile an hour fastball. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. The touch on the ball. So if you're talking about a slot fade or something where Justin Jefferson, they do this a lot with Kirk cousins and Jefferson, he just runs a fade to the outside. The outside wide receiver runs a little hitch. You can sort of envision this where he's going he's got space to work with but he's going out to the sideline and you that's a drop in the

bucket throw you take a step back and you flick it up in the air and he runs underneath it jumps over the guy mosses him and profit right at this moment i think mccarthy just whips it at him as hard as he can every one of these throws requires a different type of touch on the football. And as you're saying, you're going to have to throw it to different spaces, and you're going to require one, two, and three throws. The driver, the seven iron, the chipper, and he's going to have to figure all those things out. And how he does it will be worth watching

as we go forward. Joel says, who is RB3? Aaron Jones has an injury history. Chandler's unproven. Kanae Wongwu, a special teams player. McBride is a bubble guy. Miles Gaskin at this moment is in the mix on the roster as well. But to your point, I don't know how many teams have three, four, five running backs. This is kind of how it's going to have to be with Aaron Jones and Ty Chandler. Chandler proved that he can be trusted. Those RB1 if Jones does get hurt. I thought he did a good job overall. There were moments of pass protection, for example, or running the right way at times. This will be his third season if he can't figure those things out it's a problem McBride will see if he takes a step forward last

year that was a lot of uh day three draft buzz and nothing else and Kenny Wong who's been in the league long enough he should be able to get on the field if they have to but you're probably right more of a special teams player. There isn't much more I think you can really do. You could bring in another veteran, but I'm not sure how much more when you're at this point in the game, you can really add to that room. So maybe Miles Gaskin makes the team because he has more experience in the past. But yeah, I mean, I think overall though with Jones and Chandler, they're in pretty good shape. Thoughts on Levi Drake Rodriguez. My thought is I am curious to see what he looks like,

but we really won't get that sense for quite some time down the road with defensive tackles. I think this is smart. It just makes my job a little harder. I think it's smart for Kevin O'Connell to avoid physical contact too much between offensive and defensive linemen. They get hurt a lot in these training camp or in the OTAs and mini camps and even training camps. There's bodies fallen. If you're too physical, people ram their heads into each other, fingers get twisted, stuff like that. Like you don't want any of that. So they kind of keep their hands off each other a little bit. I assume he's going to look big. But as far as a draft pick, you took a shot on a guy who nobody really knew a whole lot about, and that makes him intriguing. My expectation

for him is if he makes the roster, then that's a really good sign for Levi Drake Rodriguez. If he doesn't and he's a practice squatter, well, then that's kind of the sign for Levi Drake Rodriguez. If he doesn't and he's a practice squatter, well, then that's kind of the norm for a seventh round draft pick. But a big guy and an interesting selection that's worth watching, he might be the next Ivan Pace or he might be the next Dwayne McBride. We just don't know until they get out there. But, you know, a fine draft pick to take an interior rusher. Sean says, you think as we flesh out the cornerback room,

we move up from three safeties to two safety setup. Yeah, that's interesting because what I think they want to do is get Harrison Smith off the field a little bit more. Harrison Smith was on the field for 10 gazillion plays last year, and that's just too much. Even nine gazillion would have been too much. You want him, I think in more of the range of 750 snaps for next year, not over a thousand, which means getting Josh Metellus back to safety. And that opens the door to having,

you know, Andrew Van Ginkle, Blake Cashman, Ivan Pace on the field as linebackers with Dallas Turner rushing off the edge, along with Jonathan Grenard. That's a little more of a traditional type of way of going about it. Or also, you know, Josh Metellus was playing nickel corner a lot of times last year, instead of him with a nickel corner role, then you can have Byron Murphy inside and Shaq Griffin on the outside, along with Makai Blackman. Or maybe if Andrew Booth Jr. shows signs of progress, there's a lot more flexibility there. But I do think that, yes, they will have more two safety situations than three safeties.

High Times KG says, are we sure Jay Jefferson is going to be there? Well, that I don't know. He will not be there at OTAs if he doesn't have a contract. So if by Monday he doesn't have a contract, then he will not be there. You can almost guarantee that. Mandatory minicamp, maybe. Because you can show up at mandatory minicamp, put on the gear, go to the meetings

and not participate in the top practice stuff, the, the full speed reps, but you could do the side drills, throw the ball around a little, and that's showing up. And you would still get like your credit. You wouldn't get fined. I believe that that's what Daniil Hunter did last year at the beginning of camp he was coming to the facility i think coming to the facility and then going through the meetings and stuff being in there and then just going home for practice and they didn't find him they may do the same thing or they may have an extension that is all good to go by minicamp uh ferris says jj so this is this is where jefferson and mccarthy and jj's in my brain are still not worked out yet but i don't really want to call him jets

like he wants to go by jets i don't love it and i don't really want to say it like so uh we'll try to keep those straight but i've been calling jeff calling Jefferson JJ for a long time. And now I got to, I got to shit. It might look, it's hard. It's hard. It's hard over here. It's not easy. You don't know what it's like two players named JJ. Anyway, uh, J Ferris says JJ can run right or left plant and throw. Uh, when you think he's going to run very advanced for a guy who never played a down over 30. His ability to throw on the run, you can see that he was a natural athlete in a lot of different sports. That he wasn't just the kid that played quarterback. The hockey part of it, I don't know if he played baseball, but those movements, you know, Kirk was actually really good at that. He didn't often like to throw on the run or run anywhere, but on those bootlegs left and right, he could contort his body, flip his hips and get a lot

of velocity on the ball. And I see the same thing from, uh, from JJ McCarthy. So bootlegs play actions, naked rollouts, as they are called. I didn't come up with the name. Uh, the, those, um, are things that they're going to be able to use with him. Sean says, great point on the mechanics of getting the play implementation huddle up to the line in time. Yes, agree. It's not a problem if he sits for a year. And that's the thing is with his age. And you point out that he hasn't played over the age of 20 years old that he turned.

I think it was it was it in January that he turned, that all of this stuff is going to take some time. And if he has to sit, then there's no big deal. Uh, it really isn't. It's, it's, it's not going to be what everybody wants, uh, if he is sitting and they're playing, but you know, I think that if Sam Darnold is winning games or there are 500 team that's fighting for a playoff spot, it will be much easier to say, Hey, like it's okay that JJ McCarthy's not starting just yet. Uh, selling McCarthyism, when does KOC get extended? His contract ends after the 2024 or I'm sorry, 2025, 2026 season. You know what? Uh, over the, I have stopped thinking too much about contract extensions because of the year to year nature of the NFL. But I would imagine that he would be

extended after 2024 because that would be 2022, 23, 24. And he would not want to go in with a lame duck year. That's normally how it works is that you don't want to have that lame duck situation where you're going into the final year of your contract without an extension. That's when it usually got negotiated with Mike Zimmer, but it's always just every coach, no matter how much they paid him, it's always year to year, always year to year. Bruce says he fit in a system. They didn't arrange a system to fit him. Yeah. I mean, when it comes to that question, there's always, you want to maximize what a guy can do, but Kevin O'Connell has an offense that we know works and we've seen it work. And with Kirk Cousins as the quarterback, I remember looking this up. They have the seventh most points from the time he took over to the moment Kirk got hurt.

They were seventh in the league in scoring. They've been an effective passing offense. You want McCarthy to be able to work with Justin Jefferson in the same way that has had Jefferson playing his butt off for the last couple of years and absolutely dominating. You want that. You definitely want that so uh ferris says jj completed 240 passes last year may completed 269 somehow jj never threw the ball and may was winging it all over the place according to some no i mean it's obvious man that mccarthy has thrown barely any passes in college. Um, it's just, you know, that

it's just a fact. It's just a fact. He only threw 700 college passes and that's nowhere near the amount that anybody else in this class through, which means it's going to take more time for him, which means that the other quarterbacks are longer developed. You don't have to stat spin to try to like work around that point to sell McCarthy. I don't think, I don't think anyone has, well, I put it this way that like everyone knows that the team knows it. The GM knows it when they drafted him and they tried to find ways to analyze his game, working around that small sample size factor. I had Casey on the show. I asked him that question.

And Kevin O'Connell also knows how far he has to come because he was not the centerpiece of their offense because he didn't throw that many passes. So we don't have to try to work around that or use different statistics or whatever else. It's just something clear that I think they know and is going to be part of him being developed. A couple more and then it's Wolves time.

Real quick, rapid fire. Sean says, great rookie defensive end sack 9-12. Do you anticipate Dallas Turner getting in that range? I think that's a little bit much for an expectation to be into double digits. 8-10? Hard to say with sacks. I mean, impact versus sacks is something statistically we could talk about pressures making plays. I'd look at it like this. If he gets 600 snaps, eight sacks, 45 pressures, that's a really good season, really good season. Um, that that's probably where I would try to project him

out right now. So, uh, JJ and JJM. Yeah. Maybe I'm going to have to do that. JJ and JJM. Uh, okay. Last thing selling McCarthyism says, I think JJ needs the development that Darnold never got. Uh, there are a lot more similar than people think. Yeah, I think the difference is that Darnold had a lot of turnovers in college and it never really stopped. And that was his fatal flaw. And that wasn't really an issue for JJ McCarthy as much as it was for Darnold. But you are absolutely right that they threw Sam Darnold into the mix and just said, all right, kid, you're 20 years old, go lead the New York Jets. They didn't give them great receivers and not a whole lot else to work with. So they're going to wait until McCarthy is ready to go. Speaking of ready to go, Timberwolves are ready to go, which means I got to go and watch

some basketball game seven. I hope it all works out for everybody cheering for the wolves. So thank guys for popping on. Hope you enjoyed the football conversation. A lot more of these in the off season, a lot more of these, uh, live shows where I do Q and A's. So make sure you subscribe, set your alerts so you can know when I'm going to go live, because as you see, love to get to a lot of your questions and comments and so forth and keep an eye out for all the OTA coverage this week. There will be a lot. Take care, everybody. Football.